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Tuesday, August 02, 2005

more on the Hyde Collection

Friday's post on Glens Falls, NY's Hyde Collectiononly talked about the work on permanent display in the Hyde's former home, but the museum is larger than that original structure and includes two other galleries for temporary exhibitions.

The larger of the two galleries has an exhibition entitled Painting Lake George: 1774 - 1900 full of paintings of nearby Lake George by artists like Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, William Bliss Baker, Sanford Gifford, John Frederick Kensett, Jasper Cropsey*, and many others.

I had just been swimming in Lake George the day before so it was especially nice to see these.

PIECES: collage, constructions & conceptual work is the show in the smaller gallery. The exhibition includes small pieces by Joseph Beuys, John Chamberlain, Sol LeWitt, Betty Parsons, Judy Rifka, David Smith, Richard Tuttle, and others. I was drawn to the small black box by Louise Nevelson and a somewhat similar black sculpture by Bill Barrett - at first I thought that this Bill Barrett was the same artist who organized the Philadelphia Art Alliance's Sugamo Prison show but it is actually a different man. That Bill Barretteis spelled with an e at the end.

*I'm sick of rainbows in recent paintings but still like seeing them in older work. Here's a Cropsey painting of Niagara Falls with a rainbow. So sweet. Why am I sick of the new ones? Is it because they are just bad paintings? Is it my jeaousy? The new ones are kitschy and the old ones aren't? I don't know. The newer one's colors are so flat and heavy. Where's the magic? Somebody point me to some good rainbow paintings.